by Julia B. Levine

At first a rumble, then thunder cracks apart the morning
and suddenly I remember half-waking last night

to a heron shrieking
as a coyote made a meal of stilts and feathers—

though in my stupor, I misheard it as drunken boys
yelling Hooray! slowly over and over again,

as if death was jubilant
with a broken singing in her mouth.

Now lightning welds four forks of vanishing
into a sky that has, overnight, lost a bit of winged blue.

When we are lucky, we forget peril’s appetite.
But the August my daughter labored to bring her first child

here, a force and counterforce wrestled in the mystery
of her body and its absence still occupying mine.

Today the marsh steams, brightening green.
And there, further out along the brambled roadside,

I remember last summer, how blackberries
scattered behind a trio of women

as they carried their overfilled buckets home.
And I remember writing then, This baby will destroy the whole of her.

I should know. Speak to me of love and I’ll answer ruin
begins as a brimming sweetness, threatening to spill.

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Julia B. Levine’s recent awards include the Northern California Book Award in Poetry for her collection, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight (LSU, 2014), a 2022 Poet Laureate Fellowship from the American Academy of Poetry, and first prize from the Bellevue Literary Review, the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, and Tiferet. Currently her work is appearing in Terrain, The Night Heron Barks, Blackbird, and The Southern Review. Her most recent collection is Ordinary Psalms (LSU Press, 2021).

by Julia B. Levine

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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Say it and it will be so. 
Say there are borders that cannot be broken.  
That science is an expertly shot horror film  
we are wise to avoid before bed.  
Say that an executive order  
has unshackled our lives from natural law,  
our flesh from the entwined entire.  
That, in time, we do not vanish.  
Say that the first week you know its terminal, 
I bake bread and bear it warm, 
swaddled in paper towels, against my chest.  
Outside, your husband picks lemons  
shin-deep in a lawn gone neon-green.  
In pictures above the table,  
your two boys shine.  
Say that I’m not sick too  
of love as the original congress on loss.  
Of hope handcuffed to habeas corpus. 
Say blue for your eyes, black for your hair,  
wren for your twitching hand in mine.  
Say that it’s not happening  
so that it won’t, the world no longer turning  
at the speed of betrayal, a little sunlight instead  
sown across your kitchen floor. 
Say that we are poised to enter spring  
and in the alt-truth all around us 
its smooth sailing, easy peasy,  
nothing but the blast furnaces  
of the almond orchards fired up,  
exploding in a sudden, ethereal snow.

______________________________________________________________________

Julia B. Levine’s poetry has won many awards, including a 2021 Nautilus Award for her fifth poetry collection, Ordinary Psalms (LSU press, 2021), as well as the 2015 Northern California Book Award in Poetry for her fourth collection, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight (LSU, 2014). Widely published and anthologized, currently she is a 2022 American Academy of Poetry Poet Laureate Fellow for her work in building resiliency in teenagers related to climate change through poetry, science and technology. See juliablevine.

by Julia B. Levine

and stand on the balcony, listening to deer
step through the crisp of dead leaves.

Behind me, the dream.
Your body asleep in our bed. Above me,

a river of half-living, half-dying stars,
Now the stony knock of a falling acorn.

Now my knot of terror at losing you.
Once we hiked into these hills

to a ruined homestead. Moss and vine
and bramble. House as rumor,

a few fitted stones, a fallen beam.
It was late afternoon. Red on the gold hills,

sound of a river we searched to find,
but it was just a breeze

moving between leaves.
I remember we undressed

and lay down
inside the hieroglyphics of shelter

that meant finally nothing
could hold us, your breath

on my neck, our bodies binding,
unbinding in sunlight.

______________________________________________________________________

Julia B. Levine’s many awards for her work include the Northern California Book Award in Poetry for Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight (LSU press, 2014), the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry, and the Bellevue Literary Review Poetry Prize. She has been published widely in anthologies and journals, including The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and The Nation. Her fifth collection, Ordinary Psalms (LSU Press) was published in 2021. She lives in Davis, California, where she serves as the current poet laureate.

by Julia B. Levine

Say it and it will be so.

Say there are borders that cannot be broken.

That science is an expertly shot horror film

we are wise to avoid before bed. 

Say that an executive order

has unshackled our lives from natural law,

our flesh from the entwined entire.

That, in time, we do not vanish. 

Say that the first week you know it's terminal,

I bake bread and bear it warm,

swaddled in paper towels, against my chest.

Outside, your husband picks lemons

shin-deep in a lawn gone neon-green.

In pictures above the table,

your two boys shine.  

Say that I’m not sick too

of love as the original congress on loss.

Of hope handcuffed to habeas corpus.

Say blue for your eyes, black for your hair,

wren for your twitching hand in mine.

Say that it’s not happening

so that it won’t, the world no longer turning

at the speed of betrayal, a little sunlight instead

sown across your kitchen floor.

Say that we are poised to enter spring

and in the alt-truth all around us

it's smooth sailing, easy peasy,

nothing but the blast furnaces

of the almond orchards fired up,

exploding in a sudden, ethereal snow.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Julia B. Levine’s most recent poetry collection, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight (LSU press 2014), was awarded the 2015 Northern California Book Award in Poetry. Her awards include the Tampa Review Poetry Prize for her second collection, Ask, and the Anhinga Prize in Poetry and a bronze medal from Foreword Magazine for her first collection, Practicing for Heaven. Widely published, her work has been anthologized in many collections. She lives and works in Davis, California.